INTRODUCTION

Portraits can represent individuals in many different ways. They
can be literal representations of a person or they can represent a
person symbolically. Around the time that these three paintings
were created, a shift in the way artists represented people was
starting to take hold. Rather than just seeking to capture the
sitter’s physical appearance, artists sought to represent his or
her character, disposition, and even inner psyche. In order to
represent such subjective and symbolic aspects of their subjects,
artists often paid less attention to capturing precise facial
features than to developing new compositional devices, employing
nonnaturalistic color and making very specific choices about the
background and what it might reveal about the subject.

LESSON OBJECTIVES

Students will be introduced to some of the conventions of
portraiture such as costume, gesture, expression, pose, and
background.

Students will consider how the above elements can communicate
information about a person.

Students will consider how symbols can be used in a portrait to
add meaning.

INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSION

Begin the conversation by asking your students to define
portraiture. Ask them if they have ever sat for their portrait.
Perhaps they have had their picture taken at school. Ask them if
they do anything special in preparation for having their picture
taken. Ask them why or why not.

Ask your students to describe what someone looking at their
portrait could learn about them from what they are wearing (their
costume or outfit) or the expression on their face.

Consider Édouard Vuillard’s painting Mother and Sister of the
Artist, which represents his mother and sister at home, where
they both lived and worked as seamstresses. Unlike traditional
portraiture, Vuillard was not so interested in recording his
subjects’ precise likenesses as in capturing the nature of their
relationship and environment. Ask your students to look carefully
at this work and tell you what the painting seems to be suggesting
about Vuillard’s mother and sister. Make sure that they support
their comments with visual evidence from the painting. Ask them to
note specifically how Vuillard communicates these ideas to the
viewer. Introduce the terms “pose” (the way a figure is
positioned), “gesture” (the placement of the figure’s hands), and
“expression” (the appearance of the figure’s face). Ask them to
consider the background against which the figures are posed.

IMAGE-BASED DISCUSSION

Ask your students to take a moment to look at Portrait of
Joseph Roulin. Make sure that they understand the terms
“costume,” “expression,” “pose,” and “background,” and ask them to
keep these ideas in mind while describing the portrait to you.

Joseph Roulin worked for a post office in the French town of
Arles. He was not a letter carrier but rather held a higher
position as an official sorting mail at the train station. Van Gogh
and Roulin lived on the same street and became close friends. Van
Gogh painted many portraits of Roulin. This picture, which van Gogh
boasted of having completed quickly, in a single session, was
painted after Roulin got a better-paying job and left Arles. Some
scholars think that this portrait was not painted from life but
rather from memory or from previous portraits.

Ask your students what they think can be learned about Joseph
Roulin by looking at this picture.

Show your students Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a
Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints,
Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890. Ask them to take a moment
to look at this portrait.

Ask them what they think can be learned about Félix Fénéon by
looking at this portrait, keeping in mind costume, expression,
pose, and background.

Ask your students to think about the title. Make sure they
understand that the term “opus” refers to a musical movement, and
that the rest of the title refers to the background of the painting
as “rhythmic with beats and angles, tones, and tints.” Write this
part of the title on the chalkboard, and ask your students to
consider the words while describing the painting’s background.

Félix Fénéon was an art and literary critic who acted as a
spokesperson and advocate for Paul Signac and contemporaries such
as Georges Seurat and Camille Pissarro. He coined the term
“Neo-Impressionist” to distinguish their work from the
Impressionists, and explicated the artists’ interest in optics and
color theory, which informed their use of many small brushstrokes
or dots (a style known as “pointillism”) to compose their pictures.
Like many of his friends, Fénéon enjoyed dressing eccentrically in
silk top hats and capes. His pointed beard contributed to his
resemblance to Uncle Sam.

Ask your students to look at these two paintings again. Ask them
to describe how they are similar and how they are different.

Ask what aspects of their subjects the artists have chosen to
highlight.

ACTIVITIES/PROJECTS

Ask your students to plan a portrait of someone they know. Ask
why they selected this person. Have them write a few words to
describe his or her personality and consider what they would like
to communicate about the person to the viewer. Then ask them to
think about the costume, expression, pose, and background they
intend to include in their portrait to best communicate this
information. Have them make a drawing, painting, or collage of the
person.

Ask your students to create a self-portrait in the same
manner.

As mentioned above, Félix Fénéon was an art critic who
influenced the way in which people understood and thought about the
work of artists he chose to write about. There were other people
who wrote about art at this time who also had an impact on the way
in which the public viewed art. Research some of these critics and
their ideas.

There are art critics today who write reviews of museum
exhibitions and artists’ shows in newspapers and magazines. Find a
local exhibition and ask your students to visit it either on their
own or as a class. Before the visit, students should brainstorm
about questions to consider while they are at the exhibition. They
should take notes about what they see, thinking carefully about the
themes and ideas in the exhibition and the ways in which the works
are installed. Ask them to use these notes to each write a review
of the show. Then have the students read a published review on the
exhibition. How does the review add to their ideas or help further
their understanding of the exhibition? Do they agree or disagree
with the reviewer?

GROVE ART ONLINE: Suggested Reading

Below is a list of selected articles which provide more
information on the specific topics discussed in this section.